Someone Older, Something New
by 332249
Summary: Most of the revenue for Third Eye Books comes from the rare book trade. Adam Pierson is in the market. Set pre-series for Iron Druid, and post-series for Highlander
1. Chapter 1

Request Response for Psychee. I hope this comes close to what you were hoping for.

Perry tapped Atticus on the shoulder. "Hey Boss, I think your book collector guy is here."

The old Druid turned to spot the thirty something, carelessly dressed in whatever his hand happened to fall on that morning (in this case a floppy, over-sized sweater). And topped the ensemble off with an even floppier long trench coat. Apparently, despite the years of study as a historian, the man had yet to quite figure out that the temperature in Tempe, Arizona wasn't ideal for layering like it was in his wetter, home climate. The probable book collector probably hadn't noticed trifles like weather, considering the text he must be wetting himself to authenticate.

Atticus laughed. "Gee, Perry, what gave him away?"

Perry shrugged his Goth-black covered shoulders, making his heavy necklace chains rattle, with a small smirk. "Do you think he's embracing the stereotype, or is that just comfortable for him?"

"Honestly, I doubt most scholars realize they all wear the unofficial uniform." Atticus set down the herbs and teas he had been mixing and brushed the particulates from his hands. "Taking off?"

Perry nodded. Regular shop hours were over and the young man had places to be. He flipped the sign from "open" to "close" on the way out.

The 'book collector guy' (or more specifically, one Adam Pierson) had found the old cabinet crammed full of even older books. While the visitor had yet to wet himself in his excitement, Atticus thought he saw a little bit of drooling. In all honesty, the _was_ reason to drool sitting protected in that cabinet. Not that Pierson could truly appreciate that yet. Half the books didn't have a title of any kind on the spine. Of the half that did proclaim their content, most of those proclamations were written in dead languages. Deader languages than most modern scholars _could_ learn.

Pierson looked up at Atticus' approach. "Is the owner here yet?" he demanded excitedly. "Is that really a Baste Cult Grimoire?" he continued; without allowing time for Atticus to respond to the first query. All of the man's attention was on the unmarked gray leather.

Atticus hesitated a beat. It _was_ a Baste Cult Grimoire, one of only four left in existence. But how did this scrawny academic recognize it from the untitled spine?

"It almost _has_ to be!" Pierson gushed. "No one else from that time period would have **dared** to use Mau skin as a book cover, not without an army in between them and the Baste temple. And that is most certainly Egyptian Mau cat skin binding, the coloring and texture patterns are quite distinctive."

Ah. That made sense. Reassured, the druid introduced his current persona. "Hi. I'm Atticus O'Sullivan, owner of Third Eye Books. You must be Adam Pierson." He offered a hand in greeting.

Pierson blinked in surprise before accepting the proffered hand. "You're Mr. O'Sullivan?" The scholar's eyes noted the Celtic knot tattoos, but didn't comment.

"Atticus, please. Mr. O'Sullivan was my father." Well, not really, but it was the type of thing a twenty something would say. Also, interestingly, the pale-skinned book worm boasted a number of dry calluses across his palm. Calluses like that usually meant the owner used his hands for far more than turning fragile pages...

"Atticus," Pierson repeated with a smile. "Sorry, I hope I didn't offend. Its just that usually rare book collectors are a fair bit... older."

Atticus' eyes twinkled with the old, familiar inside joke. "I'm older than I look. But with this baby-face, no one ever believes me. I mean, I'm probably older than you." Adam Pierson, doctoral candidate, looked to be in his late twenties to early thirties. For all that Atticus only looked twenty-one years, even thirty-five would be a mere fraction of the Iron Druid's twenty one centuries.

A wicked glint sharpened Pierson's gaze. With an easy laugh, he answered, "Oh, I wouldn't bet on that. Wouldn't bet on that at all. I, too, suffer from baby-face, my friend. For as young as I look, there are days when I feel absolutely ancient."

Well, that was an interesting response, Atticus thought.

"Speaking of ancient," Pierson continued blithely on. "IS that a Baste Grimoire?"

"Yes, though I am surprised you recognized it."

"Mmm? Oh. I made a study of cats in mythology before, mostly through the Egyptian and African cultures." Pierson offered as explanation. Then he chuckled. "A lot of people who have known me have commented on the similarities on my habits to their housecat. You know, finicky, fickle, never knowing if I want in or out." Pierson chuckled lightly. "And I suppose there is my tendency to sprawl out over the most inconvenient of spaces like I own them. Rather feline, I guess."

Atticus laughed. "I suppose I should warn you then, that I am not much of a cat person."

Pierson shrugged. "Fair enough. Despite what my friends say about me, I never really cared for cats. Now, horses. I have to admit that I have long had a fascination with and appreciation for horses."

"Ah-ha. Well, since the Baste Grimoire isn't currently for sale-" (It had waa-a-a-ay too many potentially destruction spells copied into its pages to ever sell to a regular Joe.) "-maybe I can interest you in this." Atticus lead the researcher to an older scroll. It was remarkably well preserved thanks to the dry climate it came from. "This is a part of a journal, carbon dated to be at least four thousand years old. The author names himself as Iry-Hor, and claims to have survived a raid by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I can't read the original language, but there's an ancient Greek translation with it. If memory serves, there's even a decent sketch of the four men."

Pierson did an admirable job of maintaining his body's nonchalance. There was only minor stiffening of muscle, only a small catch in his breathing, and his carotid only gave one stronger pulse before his heart rhythm returned to normal. To all appearances, the young man was as relaxed as he had been a moment before. But Atticus was a very old druid and a long student of human nature. And he understood the importance of Paying Attention.

This was what the other man truly wanted.

An old Irish saying came to Atticus' mind: As honest as a cat when the meat's out of reach. Pierson's friends were right; he really was quite feline. Well, he would not be walking out of here with that scroll without paying through his large nose for it.

"Can I see?" Pierson asked, keen as any grad student on his way to a doctorate would be.

Atticus pointed handed out a pair of soft cotton gloves for handling the ancient document. All the while he cast a small but effective binding to prevent the same document from leaving his shop until he was good and ready.

Adam Pierson gently, almost reverently, unrolled the scroll work; his eyes taking in the revealed writing. Atticus doubted the other man realized he was muttering under his breath. Curious, he tapped a little bit a magic stored in his bear charm to let him hear the mutters... but none of it was in a language Atticus knew. Or even recognized. The flow of words was punctuated occasionally with a soft laugh or a snort of incredulity.

Atticus couldn't read the scroll, but he could appreciate the artistry once Pierson unrolled the document all the way. Iry-Hor would never have been a portrait master, but the faces of the four men who destroyed everything he cared about had clearly been burned into his memory. The renderings at the bottom were plenty good enough by modern standards to double as a police artist sketch.

And the man shown on the far left was the same one standing next to him. Clearly identifiable despite the image's long hair and some kind of face paint.

The same man from a 4,000 year old scroll.

"Damn. I was afraid of that." Pierson turned to meet his eye with a wry expression. "And you thought you were old, Druid."

"Are you here to kill me?" Atticus asked, doing some fast mental work. If Aenhus Og had gotten serious about sub-contracting an old druid's death... he might actually be screwed. His deal with the Morrigan or not, he was screwed. One of the Four Horsemen of the Fucking Apocalypse stood in his shop and his wards hadn't done a damn thing! What was he? An old pantheon god? Something from the Judeo-Christian spectrum? Would Gaia aid him against whatever this was? But above all,why didn't Atticus keep his thrice-damned magic sword on him instead of buried in the garden?!

His would-be assassin laughed. _Guffawed_ , if you want to get technical. "One bad millennia and no one ever lets you live it down." He shook his head. "No, I'm not here to kill anyone or anything. I am quite retired from that nonsense."

"Re-?" Atticus blinked. "Retired? You can do that?"

"Why not?" he asked, clearly amused.

"Uh." Atticus had to get his brain working. Intelligence really was a druid's best asset. Why not indeed. "Aren't gods... stuck... doing what they do?"

The _older_ man smiled kindly. "I wouldn't know. I'm not a god."

Violent past aside, Adam Pierson didn't seem particularly aggressive. Which gave Atticus enough courage to ask, "Then what are you? How did you know what I was?"

"I'm just a really old guy in the market for a really old scroll," he answered genially, and utterly unhelpfully.

Right, that was a might bit personal of a question. Knowing _what_ someone was told you a lot about what they could do and what could harm them. There was a reason various people of the supernatural persuasion were so cagey and worked so hard to preserve their mystery.

"As for your second question, you literally have your profession tattooed into your skin for all the world to see," Pierson gestured to the Celtic knot work clearly visible running along the druid's forearm. Then he amended, "Anyone in the world who knows what they are looking at, I suppose. There are less and less of those anymore."

Oh, _shite._ Atticus thought. He really hated when someone knew more about what's going on than him. Druids were supposed to be keepers of knowledge. He tried changing tactics. "Really old guy? Four thousand years is what qualifies as really old, huh?"

Pierson hummed thoughtfully. "You say Iry-Hor wrote that four thousand years ago? I suppose carbon dating is more or less accurate."

More or less, huh? Subtext: I know what you're doing, whipper-snapper. I'm a lot older than that, so do not mess with me.

"You don't actually work for a 'historical society' do you?" Atticus sighed. He had been looking forward to a simple cash for product transaction.

Oh, I used to," Pierson admitted. "But I only joined up so I could quietly delete myself from the records. Once they figured out that I had been editing their precious chronicles, I was made unwelcome." Then the over four thousand year old man... pouted, like historians could be so unreasonable, and wasn't that a darn shame?

Atticus had to snicker. "A darn shame," he agreed.

A fond smile crossed the older man's lips. "A certain Dr. Zoll- a fine upstanding historian- will be along soon enough, I think, to make you an offer on the same document. She has been trying to prove who I am through independent documentation for, oh, the last decade or so. A very determined woman, Dr. Zoll."

"Is there a particular reason you should _not_ be in the history books?" Atticus wanted to know. He could think of a few reasons, honestly, why a man might value his privacy.

Pierson considered the question, clearly trying to decide how much to tell the shopkeeper. After a minute's thought, he answered. "This historical society has a distressing tendency to... turn on their subjects every few centuries or so. Often for merely being different, for being not human. But also because a great many of us are products of the times we were born into. Which rarely blend well with modern societies as they advance."

Atticus nodded his understanding. "Ah, yes. 'Enlightened society' can look down all they want on the world as it was. They didn't have to survive in it."

"And the poor, enlightened dears have no idea that given another hundred years or so, they will be vilified by the next generation. Their great-grandchildren will denounce them for being the monsters that actually _killed animals_ for the meat when they had perfectly acceptable vegetarian options." Pierson gasped in mock horror and clutched at his chest in shock.

Atticus laughed. "Or dared to drive _cars_ even though they knew about greenhouse gases and emissions damaging our ozone."

Pierson nodded. "Soon enough we will have other options."

"Thank Gaia."

Pierson hummed in agreement. "I severely dislike being a target of record when those morally outraged few break their mandate to observe and record without interference."

"I can understand that," Atticus commiserated.

"Also, my own position among my kind is... tenuous," Pierson continued. "Nearly all of them end up hunting me at some point. Either for who I am, what I am, who I was, or what I represent. Not all of them want to kill me." He smirked, and added, "At least not at first. But even those who don't want my head on a platter, want more than I am willing to give. Or they want a someone who exists only in their imagination and become threatening when they discover I can only be who I actually am. It's exceedingly frustrating."

"Let me guess, you are not the only one of your kind who has been known to browse through certain historical chronicles?" Atticus guessed.

"Exactly so."

"And you don't want your younger generation to know that you were once conqueror of nations?" Atticus asked.

"Continents, kiddo. I once conquered continents." Pierson corrected. "And no, not particularly. Half of them condemn me for having done it; while the other half condemn me for not wanting to do it again. Fickle bunch. Either way, they have no right to condemn me."

"Ah." Continents. Plural. Gods Above! "Swords into plowshares?"

"Goodness, no!" Pierson blurted. "I hated farming."

That answer startled a laugh out if Atticus. Despite the ever growing number on the Scary Bad-Ass O-Meter, Atticus was beginning to like the guy.

"So. What it the asking price for the journal excerpt of one Iry-Hor?" Pierson asked.

Honestly, the document came with an attached value in American dollars, formally appraised and authenticated by a museum expert. Atticus had intended to auction the thing off sooner or later to maintain the bottom line of Third Eye. BUT. Eldritch creature were known to use information or favors as currency, too. And such intangibles could be so much more useful in the long run.

"How about your real name, your real age, and what all good _historians_ know about your kind?" Atticus was almost certain that 'historian' was not the commonly used term for whatever the historical society actually was.

Pierson hesitated and considered. "The standard issue tutorial on my kind given by the 'historians' I can do. Including our known strengths and weaknesses. But I will not give my true name from my own lips. Not to anyone."

Atticus winced. Right. That had been extremely presumptuous of him.

"In good faith, I will tell you that I am often called Methos," he tapped a word on the scroll, most likely him name in the language. "And I am the oldest survivor of my kind."

Atticus' ears twitched. 'Survivor' of his kind? Oh, there was a good story behind that.

Pierson continued, "As a counter-offer: The tutorial, plus one useful answer or helpful piece of advice from the world's oldest man. To be redeemed now or at a later date as needed. If I know it, and you want to know it, I will tell you."

"Agreed." Oh, yeah, Atticus thought, this Methos knew what levers will move a druid.

"Alright then, young druid. Let's find a bar and let story time begin..."

.

Epilogue

.

(Cue dramatic instrumental music)

"I am Methos, born over 5,0000 years ago in the scorching sands of a country who's name has been forgotten. From the dawn of time we came...Immortals, creatures of legend, moving silently down through the millenniums. Living many secret lives, struggling to reach the time of the Gathering, when the few who remain will battle to the last. Then the stroke of a sword and the fall of a head will release the power of the Quickening. In the end, there can only be One."

"Pfft. Never gonna happen."

(music cuts out with a vinyl record scratch)

"Wait, what?"

"Never gonna happen. I don't care what the Watchers say. As long as there are at least two of us, I can live forever. Since I enjoy life and all of its infinite mysteries, I _intend_ to live forever. Therefore, I will never actually take the head of the second to last immortal. Therefore, there will never be only one."

"You are drunk, Methos. What if someone takes your head before then?"

"Piffle, Siodhachan. Every five hundred years or so, I sneak back into the Watchers. Then I use the Chronicles to find a hero type, someone really good with a sword, ya know? Then I point him at everyone getting too big for their britches. I hang around long enough to pull the poor sap through the inevitable Dark Quickening that comes with being a judgmental bastard, teach him a few things about surviving the changing times that he hasn't figured out yet, then fade away back into myth and legend. Murderous Assholes dead. Walking Hero-Complex owes me one. The next generation had a few centuries to repopulate before the head-hunters get going again. Win-win."

"Anyone ever tell you you are a manipulative bastard?"

"All the time. But I know they never mean it."

(cue "Princes of the Universe" by Queen)


	2. Chapter 2

A short, thick sword streaked out of nowhere. The mundane blade of mundane steel had done that a lot in the last hour or so. Atticus twisted and rolled, frantically trying to clear the deadly arc and recover some breathing room. It didn't work. Again.

At the last possible _millisecond_ the blade did some twisting of its own. Instead of wickedly sharp edge cleaving clean through his neck, the heavy flat of the Ivanhoe clobbered him. The force of the blow tossed him into a cartwheel, ass over teakettle, and dumped him in an undignified heap on the ground.

Come to think of it, ground was good. It was stable and sturdy and a direct link to Gaia. The Druid activated his healing magic to deal with the bruising, the whiplash, and the concussion. All he could do after that was pant and concentrate on not blacking out completely as the magic fought to stabilize his blood flow in his brain.

A pair of broken-in sneakers stepped lightly into his field of vision. "That looks like it smarts," Methos commented idly. As though he hadn't just caused the damage.

Atticus could only groan. Of course it "smarts," the bloody bastard knew that.

"Easy, lad," Methos soothed in old Irish as he squatted beside him. "Give it a few minutes."

Atticus cracked one eye open and croaked, "I think I hate you."

"There's a club for that," Methos laughed. "With international membership. Only: most of the members are _sure_ they hate me. You may not qualify yet."

"Give it time," Atticus grumbled.

"Time, I have."

"Why did I agree to spar, again?" Atticus slowly rolled himself into a sitting position, testing to see if his body would allow the change in altitude.

"You want to improve. A laudable goal."

"I do, but I didn't think…" Atticus trailed off, as he realized where that sentence would lead.

Methos, the smug arse, finished for him anyway. "But I'm a two thousand year old swordsman, in great shape, a student of dozens of styles, some that have been lost to history. With the strength of Gaia to aid me, I shouldn't have _lost!_ " The last bit, the Old Guy delivered with a whine and a pout. Atticus had heard the same sound and seen the same expression from dozens of students throughout the years. All of them so sure that they were All That now that they had learned so much from their Master. It was embarrassing to be on the other end. He hadn't been schooled like this in centuries.

"Now I'm sure I hate you."

Methos laughed at him. "For what it's worth, I was hard-pressed to stay ahead of you. You put up an amazing fight. We should do this more often."

Atticus had to admit, the admission did cheer him. Critique and correction, followed by praise and encouragement; classic education plan. Soon, the Old Man would only answer questions with more questions until the student figured the answer out on his own. Yeah, this guy has clearly been a teacher more than a few times. And a good one, probably.

Still, the bruises made the druid ask, "Don't you have any other Immortals you can beat up on? You know, guys that don't take all night to heal?"

Methos hummed. "No. There isn't an Immortal alive that knows the full range of my sword. I don't dare give such knowledge among my kind."

Atticus sobered. He'd been told of The Game, of course, but the practice was still largely academic to him. "Surely you have friends that you trust…? That MacLeod you've mentioned?"

"I learned the hard way, a long time ago, to be wary of getting too close to fellow Immortals." Methos sighed, looking distant and sad. "Not because I think they will turn on me, nor because I don't trust them. MacLeod would take my secrets to the grave, the idiotic Boy Scout. But because, if and when they lose a Challenge… I don't just lose a friend. All that the friend knew becomes the property of his killer. And that- that does not end well."

Atticus drew a sharp breath in sudden, brutal understanding. That was the voice of bitter experience and old grief. He couldn't imagine how screwed he would be if suddenly Aengus Og knew everything about him that the Morrigan did.

Methos shook himself out of his melancholy to focus once more on the present. "Shall we go again, Siodhachan?" he asked, lifting that hell-spawned sword once more. Didn't it ever get heavy?

"The Druid looks like he's had enough, Horseman."

Both men looked up to follow that voice to see an abnormally large crow perched comfortably in the trees above them.

What was the modern (comparatively) saying? Speak of the Devil and he shall appear.

"Morrigan," Methos greeted, saluting with his sword. "If the boy is never pushed, how will he ever improve?"

"You two know each other?" Atticus asked stupidly. And 'boy'? Really?

Predictably, both of his elders ignored him.

"I cast wands this morning to check the future of my druid," the Crow informed him.

"You always struck me as more of an entrails sort," Methos teased. "Going soft?"

The Crow cawed angrily, her eyes flaring red. "Soft?!"

Methos smirked then subsided. "What did your portents tell you, Lady Chooser?"

"That Siodhachan would cross blades with Death. And loose," she answered.

Methos, AKA Death of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, laughed. "That he did. Several times, actually. But to be fair, he got better each try."

The giant bird flapped her wings to lift herself into the air. By the time she landed on the ground, she had transformed into her human form. Atticus' hormones couldn't help but appreciate the slinky black gown she'd chosen for her attire, or the way it teased at the edges of all of her naughty bits. Morrigan glided sensuously closer.

"That does not surprise, Horseman. You always were skilled with a blade." She ran a hand up and down the muscles of his sword arm. "Skilled, and vigorous. And tireless."

Methos' answering smile was positively wicked. "And you were always insatiable. _"_

Morrigan seized the wrist holding the sword in a bone crushing grip and jerked Methos' own blade around to lay across his neck. "You. Me. Epic bed sport. NOW." Her eyes flared red again with her last command.

Methos' quickening seemed to crackle around him, charging the air with static electricity. "As the lady demands," he drawled, seemingly completely at ease in the presence of a horny death goddess.

"Siodhachan! Leave!" Morrigan snapped.

Yea Gods above and little fishes Below! "Now" evidently meant right this freaking second.

Without another sound, the druid fled.

.

Epilogue

.

Adam Pierson limped carefully into Joe's Blues Bar and all but collapsed on the bar stool. The entire left side of his face sported an array of colorful bruises. The Watcher, with his keen observation skills, noted the puffy red fingernail scratches skittering down the Old Man's neck to hide under his collar. A fresh split lip on the right side did nothing to limit the goofiest grin Joe had ever seen on his friends face. It was hard to tell, but his entire mouth seemed a little puffy.

"Jesus, Adam! What happened to you?!" Joe exclaimed.

Adam sighed happily before stealing the cup of ice water Joe kept for himself while tending bar. He pressed the impromptu cold pack to the darkest of the bruises.

And refused to answer.


End file.
